The ColorChange Question
08-14-2004, 04:35 PM
#31
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My $0.02:
The common wisdom seems to be it is FAR easier to learn something the right way, then reinforce that skill until it becomes automatic, than it is to self teach, get it wrong, then un-learn it.
I read a piece about a study of race drivers. The assumption at the begining was that race drivers were fast because they posessed extremely fast reflexes. At the end of the study, it was determined that race dirvers have average to slightly better than average reflexes, but superior hand-eye coordination. But, the overiding strength of a race driver was a library of pre-determined responses to given stimulae (e.g.: the rear of the car sliding) that allowed then to adjust instantly. The study found that once learned, it was very difficult to de-program a response and replace it with a more appropriate one.
CC, I think your attempt to 'fast track' the learning curve might well result in your taking longer to get where you want to go. To me, you are re-inventing a well worn wheel. Who knows, maybe it will work for you--we are all different regarding the rate at which we learn and the most effective learning environment--but I'll wager your approach will be of limited benefit to most others.
I think PCA's program has its limits in offering taylored learning experiences, but from a novice standpoint, it is the best training program out there IMO.
As far as trail braking and other advanced techniques, Richard Spenard made the point that racers get more seat time in a week than the most dedicated trackies gets in a season. According to him, if mere mortals like us try to late brake, we will inevitabley brake too much and be slower than if we had been more conservative. The point is, you simply cannot effecitvely employ advanced techniques on a few hours a season of track time. Well, not if you're mortal. It is one thing to approach this cerebrally, it is quite another to execute the knowledge gained by studying the data.
The common wisdom seems to be it is FAR easier to learn something the right way, then reinforce that skill until it becomes automatic, than it is to self teach, get it wrong, then un-learn it.
I read a piece about a study of race drivers. The assumption at the begining was that race drivers were fast because they posessed extremely fast reflexes. At the end of the study, it was determined that race dirvers have average to slightly better than average reflexes, but superior hand-eye coordination. But, the overiding strength of a race driver was a library of pre-determined responses to given stimulae (e.g.: the rear of the car sliding) that allowed then to adjust instantly. The study found that once learned, it was very difficult to de-program a response and replace it with a more appropriate one.
CC, I think your attempt to 'fast track' the learning curve might well result in your taking longer to get where you want to go. To me, you are re-inventing a well worn wheel. Who knows, maybe it will work for you--we are all different regarding the rate at which we learn and the most effective learning environment--but I'll wager your approach will be of limited benefit to most others.
I think PCA's program has its limits in offering taylored learning experiences, but from a novice standpoint, it is the best training program out there IMO.
As far as trail braking and other advanced techniques, Richard Spenard made the point that racers get more seat time in a week than the most dedicated trackies gets in a season. According to him, if mere mortals like us try to late brake, we will inevitabley brake too much and be slower than if we had been more conservative. The point is, you simply cannot effecitvely employ advanced techniques on a few hours a season of track time. Well, not if you're mortal. It is one thing to approach this cerebrally, it is quite another to execute the knowledge gained by studying the data.
08-14-2004, 09:21 PM
#32
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Originally Posted by DGaunt
My $0.02:
The study found that once learned, it was very difficult to de-program a response and replace it with a more appropriate one.
The study found that once learned, it was very difficult to de-program a response and replace it with a more appropriate one.
08-14-2004, 11:09 PM
#33
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Originally Posted by chris walrod
My .02
From the angle of professional motorsports, where we used $80k DAS (Pi Sigma), 24 channels of CAN based data, laser ride height, aero pressure tapping, you name it real time telemetry and data logging, a few talented data geeks and race engineers with numerous custom math channels, at the end of the day, the most valuable info was given to us via stopwatch, pyrometer, and driver debriefing! Drivers often have coach's that will watch them on track at certain corners and provide feedback on top of that.
Sure the data is important, but surely not the end-all tell-all for absolute minimum lap time and maximum performance.
FWIW, anyhow..
From the angle of professional motorsports, where we used $80k DAS (Pi Sigma), 24 channels of CAN based data, laser ride height, aero pressure tapping, you name it real time telemetry and data logging, a few talented data geeks and race engineers with numerous custom math channels, at the end of the day, the most valuable info was given to us via stopwatch, pyrometer, and driver debriefing! Drivers often have coach's that will watch them on track at certain corners and provide feedback on top of that.
Sure the data is important, but surely not the end-all tell-all for absolute minimum lap time and maximum performance.
FWIW, anyhow..
08-14-2004, 11:52 PM
#34
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Adam. No problem. My competition comes from maximizing my g-sum along the best line as soon as possible (learning fast). I am competing with myself if you will, or against the data.
As you point out, there is little direct competition I will get in time trials because my car is so modded and that makes clock comparisons difficult to use as a reflection of driving ability. This is why I will run against myself or the data. This isn’t quite a s stupid as it sounds. The DAS will automatically record segment times for your history of running at the track and create what is the fastest theoretical time you could have run if you combine your fastest segments. This shows the best combination of times you have recorded and is a good target. Plus, the maximizing integral of g-sum does work as long as you don’t do anything on purpose.
Adam, I don’t know you and have never seen you drive so how can I comment upon your ability? You may be better than me and you might not be. I don’t know. While I would love to race, as I said before, daddy first, race car driver second, so no racing (real competition) for the foreseeable future. I agree on the safety of a fully caged, lower powered car, but the other people on the track are a pretty big risk addition.
Carrera:
You could be right about finding the limits. I absolutely agree that to find the limits you need to pass them, but this can usually be done without fishtailing of spinning out. Look at my video, I am all over the place and often past the limit, but I’m never at risk of spinning, huge fishtailing, or running off the track.
924
Why should I park my car? How do I learn quicker or faster by reducing my seat time even more? This does not make sense. My driving, while not great, is certainly not stumbling around in the darj.
Daly is supposed to get new, full DAS cars before the end of the year. There current DAS only gives long g’s. You need lat as well to get g-sum.
I do intend to attend Daly as soon as there cars are ready, in addition to my own stugying and DE work.
Bob:
Please don’t take my comments as slams on instructors. Sure, as in everything in life, some are great and some suck. Most I’ll bet are pretty decent for most people. I am not like most people so the general approach doesn’t work well for me. Again, I completely disagree on the straight line braking mantra. We just fundamentally disagree. I am sensitive to the trust the instructor is placing in me so I would only increase my driving with his approval.
Chris:
I agree 100% again. What a breath of fresh air you are.
Just to make a correction, I said that THEORETICALLY, given a good enough ABS and traction control system, you should drive the car like a switch and either be at 100% throttle or 100% braking all the time, with nothing in between. This is true theoretically. Now, are our cars good enough to do this? I doubt it. But I will try it and present the data. I already know that it doesn’t work on accel as the PSM is far too obtrusive and changes the line dramatically when it steps in. I haven’t tested the ABS but my guess is it isn’t up to the task either and I will probably find a way to defeat both.
MPSC’s will be my next tires as soon as I chew the MPS2’s.
LTC
I have no basis on which to comment as I have never run with PCA. I was supposed to last weekend but was taken out mechanically.
Geo, a rare reply from me. The DAS is what is used to calibrate my ***. The best solution is to have the theory and be able to apply it. That is my goal.
F1, isn’t Chris great. We have one more (and a BIG one at that) on our side.
Chris W, you are either fanatically stupid or a liar. Considering you can recreate a superiorly accurate stopwatch for anywhere on the track with a DAS, your claim of using one is bogus … at best. Sorry.
Bob, the one bad experience with an instructor I relayed, (I have had other good ones), was poorly handled by myself and the instructor, as previously discussed.
Chris C:
We are in agreement on the ABS PSM issues, and on all of your other comments as well.
DGaunt
While I agree that my approach would not be good for most people, I strongly disagree that it is not extremely efficient for me. My data says that I can often brake deep, late, and not overbrake. I also know it is the tendency and so I am prepared to fight this in advance. Yes I can employ advanced techniques with only a few hours. I don’t do it consistently or perfectly yet, but I do do it, and often reasonably well. And yes of course, I have the data to prove it!
As you point out, there is little direct competition I will get in time trials because my car is so modded and that makes clock comparisons difficult to use as a reflection of driving ability. This is why I will run against myself or the data. This isn’t quite a s stupid as it sounds. The DAS will automatically record segment times for your history of running at the track and create what is the fastest theoretical time you could have run if you combine your fastest segments. This shows the best combination of times you have recorded and is a good target. Plus, the maximizing integral of g-sum does work as long as you don’t do anything on purpose.
Adam, I don’t know you and have never seen you drive so how can I comment upon your ability? You may be better than me and you might not be. I don’t know. While I would love to race, as I said before, daddy first, race car driver second, so no racing (real competition) for the foreseeable future. I agree on the safety of a fully caged, lower powered car, but the other people on the track are a pretty big risk addition.
Carrera:
You could be right about finding the limits. I absolutely agree that to find the limits you need to pass them, but this can usually be done without fishtailing of spinning out. Look at my video, I am all over the place and often past the limit, but I’m never at risk of spinning, huge fishtailing, or running off the track.
924
Why should I park my car? How do I learn quicker or faster by reducing my seat time even more? This does not make sense. My driving, while not great, is certainly not stumbling around in the darj.
Daly is supposed to get new, full DAS cars before the end of the year. There current DAS only gives long g’s. You need lat as well to get g-sum.
I do intend to attend Daly as soon as there cars are ready, in addition to my own stugying and DE work.
Bob:
Please don’t take my comments as slams on instructors. Sure, as in everything in life, some are great and some suck. Most I’ll bet are pretty decent for most people. I am not like most people so the general approach doesn’t work well for me. Again, I completely disagree on the straight line braking mantra. We just fundamentally disagree. I am sensitive to the trust the instructor is placing in me so I would only increase my driving with his approval.
Chris:
I agree 100% again. What a breath of fresh air you are.
Just to make a correction, I said that THEORETICALLY, given a good enough ABS and traction control system, you should drive the car like a switch and either be at 100% throttle or 100% braking all the time, with nothing in between. This is true theoretically. Now, are our cars good enough to do this? I doubt it. But I will try it and present the data. I already know that it doesn’t work on accel as the PSM is far too obtrusive and changes the line dramatically when it steps in. I haven’t tested the ABS but my guess is it isn’t up to the task either and I will probably find a way to defeat both.
MPSC’s will be my next tires as soon as I chew the MPS2’s.
LTC
I have no basis on which to comment as I have never run with PCA. I was supposed to last weekend but was taken out mechanically.
Geo, a rare reply from me. The DAS is what is used to calibrate my ***. The best solution is to have the theory and be able to apply it. That is my goal.
F1, isn’t Chris great. We have one more (and a BIG one at that) on our side.
Chris W, you are either fanatically stupid or a liar. Considering you can recreate a superiorly accurate stopwatch for anywhere on the track with a DAS, your claim of using one is bogus … at best. Sorry.
Bob, the one bad experience with an instructor I relayed, (I have had other good ones), was poorly handled by myself and the instructor, as previously discussed.
Chris C:
We are in agreement on the ABS PSM issues, and on all of your other comments as well.
DGaunt
While I agree that my approach would not be good for most people, I strongly disagree that it is not extremely efficient for me. My data says that I can often brake deep, late, and not overbrake. I also know it is the tendency and so I am prepared to fight this in advance. Yes I can employ advanced techniques with only a few hours. I don’t do it consistently or perfectly yet, but I do do it, and often reasonably well. And yes of course, I have the data to prove it!
08-15-2004, 12:19 AM
#35
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Originally Posted by ColorChange
you are either fanatically stupid or a liar.
STOP LIEING ABOUT ME
STOP LIEING
Wrong again
a nice, stupid, irrelevant overgeneralization?
now you either make your case I can’t drive or shut the hell up!
Oh boy was that fun.
I’m a *****
08-15-2004, 12:28 AM
#36
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CC , I think you should consider also taking up flying. Get a real high performance plane, like a Malibu or better yet a Meridian turbo prop. I bet with some help from the simulator and some good data, you could be up shooting IFR approaches to minimums in nothing flat. To really give yourself a challenge you could spice it up by doing it in the mountains at night.
08-15-2004, 12:48 AM
#37
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Originally Posted by carreracup21
CC , I think you should consider also taking up flying. Get a real high performance plane, like a Malibu or better yet a Meridian turbo prop. I bet with some help from the simulator and some good data, you could be up shooting IFR approaches to minimums in nothing flat. To really give yourself a challenge you could spice it up by doing it in the mountains at night.
Last edited by Phil McGrath; 08-15-2004 at 01:53 AM.
08-15-2004, 02:28 AM
#39
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Originally Posted by ColorChange
Geo, a rare reply from me. The DAS is what is used to calibrate my ***. The best solution is to have the theory and be able to apply it. That is my goal.
You may figure it out using the data, but it will almost certainly take a lot longer and you'll almost certainly make a lot of mistakes along the way, many of which you won't recognize for a while.
That is why we don't just turn a freshly graduated engineer into an industry and tell him or her to go do their thing. Most companies will coach them and guide them to give them a better ratio of experience without mistakes.
08-15-2004, 06:10 AM
#41
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I have been watching CC’s reemergence without posting until now and still think my last post on the ABS thread back in March still sums it up: https://rennlist.com/forums/showthre...ve#post1098182 , that and the itoilet: https://rennlist.com/forums/showthre...abs+definitive
08-15-2004, 08:27 AM
#42
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996TT all wheel drive... When you start wearing out the rear tires really quickly, data acquisition or not, we will talk.
PLEASE listen to these guys, there is NO substitute for seat time.
PLEASE listen to these guys, there is NO substitute for seat time.
08-15-2004, 09:25 AM
#43
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Originally Posted by ColorChange
Chris W, you are either fanatically stupid or a liar.
Bob, STOP LIEING ABOUT ME PLEASE!
Sorry Sunday, it must suck to be you.
Don't know why you think I don't listen and ask for advice. I do. That was how I got the bad tire pressure suggestion.
John: Isn’t your opening paragraph a nice, stupid, irrelevant overgeneralization?
… now you either make your case I can’t drive or shut the hell up!
Rennlist has it's own Bill O'Reilly... Like a car wreck on the highway, you don't want to look but somehow just have to.
08-15-2004, 11:13 AM
#44
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I have a B.S. in E.E., so I'll go out on a limb and say this.
CC's attitude is one that I occasionally see in engineers. One of those "strength is also your weakness" issues, in that their ability to critically and obsessively evaluate the technical aspects of a problem can blind them to other less technical aspects of the issue. Sometimes, I get a engineer as a patient who can't help but make a thousand suggestions as to how I should modify surgical techniques. It's just in their nature to try to make a better widget, even if it's not in their best interest.
In surgery as in driving, there as thousands of subtle nuances that can effect the outcome of a case. A lot of it is difficult to put directly into technical terms or an equation. It's all about "seat time". In medicine, we refer to it as "gestalt" - defined as [n] a configuration or pattern of elements so unified as a whole that it cannot be described merely as a sum of its parts. In other words, it's an art as much as a science. The famous fund manager, Peter Lynch, said as much about stockpicking - which is why no mathematician or statistician has ever corned the investment world.
DAS can be immensely useful, but I suspect CC is getting the cart before the horse. I'm convinced that it's of more use to an advanced driver than a novice or intermediate one. However, in his defense, I will quote Albert Einstein:
"If at first the idea is not absurd, then there is no hope for it."
CC's attitude is one that I occasionally see in engineers. One of those "strength is also your weakness" issues, in that their ability to critically and obsessively evaluate the technical aspects of a problem can blind them to other less technical aspects of the issue. Sometimes, I get a engineer as a patient who can't help but make a thousand suggestions as to how I should modify surgical techniques. It's just in their nature to try to make a better widget, even if it's not in their best interest.
In surgery as in driving, there as thousands of subtle nuances that can effect the outcome of a case. A lot of it is difficult to put directly into technical terms or an equation. It's all about "seat time". In medicine, we refer to it as "gestalt" - defined as [n] a configuration or pattern of elements so unified as a whole that it cannot be described merely as a sum of its parts. In other words, it's an art as much as a science. The famous fund manager, Peter Lynch, said as much about stockpicking - which is why no mathematician or statistician has ever corned the investment world.
DAS can be immensely useful, but I suspect CC is getting the cart before the horse. I'm convinced that it's of more use to an advanced driver than a novice or intermediate one. However, in his defense, I will quote Albert Einstein:
"If at first the idea is not absurd, then there is no hope for it."
08-15-2004, 12:11 PM
#45
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I know CC is going to flame me and I wont bother to reply.
I didn't realize it but I had once before asked him to try and listen, not gonna happen..
He is more interested in all the attention he has generated on himself than improving anything about himself. The way I see it is there is going to be a wreck or he will simply give up the sport. I can't believe that anyone who claims to be competative in, and I quote " I am an excellent downhill skier/racer (former ski jumper)" , can actually do this with widgets and gadjets, I'm sure that jumping of a ramp is learned by JUMPING off the ramp. He believes everyone around him is incompetent and he knows best. Give me a break!
Good news is he is not on the east coast so I wont have to deal with him.
I didn't realize it but I had once before asked him to try and listen, not gonna happen..
He is more interested in all the attention he has generated on himself than improving anything about himself. The way I see it is there is going to be a wreck or he will simply give up the sport. I can't believe that anyone who claims to be competative in, and I quote " I am an excellent downhill skier/racer (former ski jumper)" , can actually do this with widgets and gadjets, I'm sure that jumping of a ramp is learned by JUMPING off the ramp. He believes everyone around him is incompetent and he knows best. Give me a break!
Good news is he is not on the east coast so I wont have to deal with him.